New milestones for decent work worldwide

Building on the wish of the September 2005 UN World Summit to make decent work and full employment basic aims of national and international policy, the ILO intends to put forward new initiatives, including a policy forum to promote a fair globalization. The workers backed these initiatives at the latest Governing Body meeting, held in Geneva on 3-18 November 2005.

A Globalization Policy Forum in which key partners in the multilateral system would examine the link between decent work and globalization. That is the new initiative proposed by the International Labour Office. It was discussed at the organization's Governing Body meeting in Geneva. The forum will, says ILO Director General Juan Somavia, mainly aim to " make decent work a common cause with key partners in the formal multilateral system [the other UN agencies and institutions such as the World Bank, the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund - Ed.] and more widely among the diverse networks of state and non-state actors, which characterize the emerging global community." And while he emphasized that the ILO does have a whole range of means at its disposal for improving the working of labour markets, he also recalled that there are policy spheres which do not fall directly within the ILO's core activities and which nevertheless have direct consequences for the ILO's ability to fulfil its mandate. It was not, he said, the ILO's business to "tell the IMF or the WTO what to do", but it was "indeed the ILO's business to evaluate the impact of those policies on the world of work."

Workers' group spokesperson Sir Leroy Trotman said the workers supported the proposal for a forum and agreed with its aim. The ILO on its own could not achieve the aim of decent work for all, he insisted. A Globalization Policy Forum could contribute to that goal by engaging in dialogue with other relevant international actors. The great majority of government delegates, with the notable exception of the United States, backed the forum proposal, but the employers were clearly opposed. The workers' group expressed its willingness to work with the employers to find means of overcoming the difficulties that are causing them concern.

The decision on the holding of the forum, and on its scope, will be taken at the March 2006 Governing Body meeting. A date has already been proposed: April 2007. This would mean that the forum would coincide with a meeting of the UN Chief Executives Board for Coordination, scheduled to be held at the ILO's Geneva headquarters. This would ensure "high-level representation of key agencies of the multilateral system".

The document tabled for discussion by the Working Party on the Social Dimension of Globalization, meeting just after the Governing Body, emphasized that setting up a forum would "respond to the ambition of the world's Heads of State and Government", as reflected in the world summit's support for decent work. In paragraph 47 of the World Summit Outcome, the world's leaders "strongly support fair globalization and resolve to make the goals of full and productive employment and decent work for all, including for women and young people, a central objective of our relevant national and international policies, as well as national development strategies, including poverty reduction strategies, as part of our efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. These measures should also encompass the elimination of the worst forms of child labour, as defined in International Labour Organization Convention No. 182, and forced labour. We also resolve to ensure full respect for the fundamental principles and rights at work."

The Fourth Summit of the Americas, which took place at the beginning of November in Mar del Plata, Argentina, concluded with a declaration and a plan of action in which the 34 Heads of State and Government put emphasized the need to create decent work as a means of combating poverty. The ILO, which was involved at various stages, was asked to take part in the follow-up to the Summit's commitments. Also, the theme for the high-level segment of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in 2006 will be national and international policies for promoting decent work. Last but not least, a UN General Assembly resolution invited relevant organizations of the United Nations system and other relevant multilateral bodies to provide to the Secretary-General information on their activities to promote an inclusive and equitable globalization.

Clearly, the globalization forum proposal comes in the context of growing national and international responses to the ILO's efforts to make decent work a worldwide objective.

Burmese regime called to order

Governing Body denounces anti-ILO campaign orchestrated by the junta
Death threats against the ILO Liaison Officer, anti-ILO rallies, press campaigns and, finally, the threat that Burma would withdraw from the organization - over the past few months, the Burmese junta has spared no effort to put the ILO under pressure. A report discussed by the Governing Body makes that very clear.

The Governing Body expressed its concern over the deteriorating situation in Burma, but firmly rejected the attempts to influence its position.

The members of the Governing Body were particularly concerned and critical about a series of death threats received by the ILO Liaison Officer as well as the former Acting Liaison Officer and current Informal Facilitator, Léon de Riedmatten. The threats were followed by official and semi-official mass rallies against the ILO presence in Burma (Myanmar).

Despite it all, the Acting Liaison Officer continued to receive complaints from victims, or their representatives, concerning cases of forced labour or forced recruitment. Unfortunately, he cannot submit these cases to the authorities, as they have indicated that they will prosecute anybody who lodges what they consider to be an "unfounded" complaint. For example, Su Su Nwe, who in January 2005 won a case that she had brought against local officials who imposed forced labour, has just been sentenced to ten months' imprisonment for "deliberate intimidation". U Aye Mint, one of three people sentenced for high treason on account of their contacts with the ILO, was released at the beginning of this year. But he has now been rearrested and charged with "propagating false information".

In a 1,600-page report presented to the ILO in September, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) confirmed that forced labourers were still being used for building infrastructure, agriculture, forestry and various services to the army, including as porters for military equipment - and as human mine detectors. Civilians clad in military uniforms are forced to carry munitions and other loads ahead of military columns, so as to draw the insurgents' fire and detonate the antipersonnel mines which abound on both sides of the front line. Armed conflicts have been raging in this South Asian country for decades now. The ICFTU has also updated the list of foreign companies that trade with Burma. There are currently 474 of them. As well as old-established trading partners like the French oil company Total and the Korean giant Daewoo, the new ICFTU list contains 38 "new entries", including Sanyo and Polyphon.

The Governing Body urgently called upon the authorities to guarantee the full functioning of its liaison office and to use the period between now and March 2006 to relaunch real dialogue, on the basis of the conclusions of the 2005 International Labour Conference.

At that conference, the ILO said the "wait and see" attitude taken by most Member States since 2001 had to change. It asked governments, employers and workers, as well as other international organizations, to activate and intensify the examination of their relations with Burma, as they were invited to do under the 2000 resolution, and to take the appropriate measures as a matter of urgency - including those concerning the various forms of foreign direct investment and relations with State or military enterprises in Burma. The workers' group once again called on all ILO constituents to fully implement the measures provided for in the 2000 resolution.

40 freedom of association cases tackled

Some bright spots, but labour rights still under attack worldwide
The ILO Freedom of Association Committee currently has before it 128 cases in which complaints have been transmitted to the governments concerned for comment. Meeting in connection with this session of the Governing Body, the Committee examined 40 cases, reaching final conclusions on 28 and provisional conclusions on 12 others.

In a number of cases, the Committee's involvement has led to positive developments which deserve to be highlighted. For instance, in a case involving the Canadian province of Ontario, the government has tabled legislation to withdraw provisions that encouraged the derecognition of workers' organizations. These provisions had been criticized by the Committee. The government of Fiji, in the hot seat for cases of anti-union discrimination, announced a Bill containing measures aimed at better protecting trade union rights. And the Honduran government has dropped the prosecutions launched against teachers' unions. More good news: following requests from the Committee, the government of Pakistan has announced that it intends to amend the 2002 ordinance on industrial relations to bring it into line with Conventions 87 and 98.

But despite these successes, the cases before the Committee show that trade union rights are still being violated in many countries, and many governments are inclined to sacrifice workers' rights in a bid to attract investments by multinationals that are not too concerned about respecting freedom of association.

The Committee drew special attention to a case in Cambodia concerning anti-union discrimination in two hotels belonging to the Raffles chain. According to Ulf Edström, commenting on the Committee's report on behalf of the workers' group, "The hotel management, after dismissing 97 workers including the whole leadership of the union, organized its own so-called "elections" of union representatives and signed a collective agreement with this phoney union committee." The government had not taken any steps to enforce labour legislation and protect workers' rights against management interference. However, from the statements made by the Cambodian government representative at the Governing Body meeting, it would seem that the trade unionists have finally been reinstated. Anyway, the Committee on Freedom of Association intends to continue examining this case.

Colombia - impunity continues
Another name that keeps cropping up is Colombia. One of the cases discussed by the committee concerned the murder of four trade unionists. Although the murder dates back several years now, those responsible have still not been identified. The Committee regretted that the government had still not responded to its repeated requests for information on the investigations. A high-level tripartite mission led by the Chair of the Committee on Freedom of Association visited Colombia on 24-29 October 2005, with the specific aim of pointing out the impunity enjoyed by the murderers of trade unionists (according to the latest ICFTU report, 99 trade unionists were murdered in Colombia in 2004). The mission's report shows that, despite the importance that the government seems to attach to this problem, impunity has continued. The mission made proposals for a permanent ILO presence in Colombia.

Other cases examined by the Committee included government interference and intimidation against trade unionists in Georgia, the refusal of the Toyota subsidiary in the Philippines to recognize and negotiate with a trade union, restrictions on the right to strike in Turkey, anti-union practices by a textile multinational in Uganda and the continuance of anti-union legislation in Iraq.

All of which raises two issues. On the one hand, as Edström pointed out, "too many governments sacrifice their workers' rights to attract investments by multinational companies". But also, although no direct link can yet be made with the ending of quotas in the textile industry, anti-union discrimination seems to be on the increase in the garment sector. Dismissals of trade unionists in Morocco, death threats in Nicaragua, discrimination in Colombia and repression in Uganda were among the cases tackled by the Freedom of Association Committee.

Australia carpeted
The Committee asked the Australian government to amend new legislation adopted on the construction industry. The new law is a serious challenge to collective bargaining, the right to strike and other basic labour rights. This case, Edström said, "reveals the action currently being taken against collective bargaining in Australia, targeting the labour market as a whole, and it shows that serious breaches of freedom of association also take place in industrialized countries".

He was referring to proposed changes to Australian labour law as a whole which seem to be inspired by the construction sector reforms criticized by the Committee. Hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated in Australia's main cities on 15 November against the proposals, which include direct hiring of employees on individual contracts, without having to negotiate collective agreements with the trade unions. According to the unions, the proposal would be a major blow to trade union freedom, as well as to unions' ability to mount bargaining campaigns. Passed at the beginning of November by the House of Representatives, the lower house of the Australian federal parliament, the legislation was due to be submitted to the Senate by the end of November. In a letter delivered to the Australian embassy in Geneva by a delegation from the workers' group on the Governing Body, the international trade union movement says that it will "do everything within its power to support the efforts of Australian workers and their trade unions to oppose this fundamental attack on workers' rights".

No progress in Belarus
The Committee also examined measures taken by the government of Belarus to implement the recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry in its report to the November 2004 session of the Governing Body. Observing that virtually no concrete measures had been taken by the government to give meaningful effect to these recommendations, the Committee once again urged the government to take specific steps for the full implementation of all of the Commission's recommendations and to provide detailed information on this. As requested by the International Labour Conference in June 2005, an ILO mission will visit the country on 16-19 January 2006 to assess the situation.

Social protection means economic growth

ILO study contradicts received wisdom
"The view that there is an inevitable trade-off between the levels of social protection and economic growth is most likely wrong, as the world's most productive economies tend to have strong social protection systems." So says a paper submitted to the Governing Body's Committee on Employment and Social Policy, for discussion and information. Brief and punchy, the document puts paid to the argument advanced by some experts that social protection could be a brake on growth. In particular, it refutes claims by specialists in the international financial institutions that social systems redistributing up to 35 per cent of countries' GDPs are no longer affordable. While certainly not ducking the issue of costs and their potential impact on growth, the ILO analysis shows that, in addition to its positive impact on workers' living conditions, social protection has many other clear benefits: reduced existential insecurity, less risk of social unrest, better adjustment of the labour force to structural changes in economies, strengthened labour productivity, contributions to financial markets and employment creation. In addition to these positive effects, the workers' spokesman on the Employment and Social Affairs Commission, Ebrahim Patel, cited four other factors contributing to adequate social protection: the positive impact on female labour force participation of maternity and child benefits; the positive impact of access to adequate health care in ensuring longer periods of productive employment in addition to increasing labour productivity; the low transaction and administration costs of well-managed social security schemes; and the economic price of shifting the costs of ill-health and other life risks to individuals, often the most vulnerable, in the absence of social security schemes. The case for social protection is overwhelming, Patel said, but there is scope for more work on the form, shape and size of social security systems in order to achieve or maximize their benefits while reducing the potential negative conduits.

The ILO plans to refine its research on this issue, in order to target its action better. It will be continuing its campaign, launched in 2001, for the extension of social protection worldwide.

A forgotten human right

Big gaps in social protection, study shows
Access to social protection is officially recognized as a human right, but it is still the exception rather than the rule. In reality, the most vulnerable sections of the population in many societies simply do not have access to social protection. So concludes a study by Isobel Frye, a researcher at South Africa's National Labour and Economic Development Institute (NALEDI), published on the website of the Global Union Research Network (GURN).

The growth of the informal economy in industrialized and developing countries alike has shown up the weaknesses and gaps in the traditional approaches to social protection. Although it is decisive for social cohesion and solidarity, social security never reaches the great mass of workers. Delving into healthcare in particular, the author sets out to identify cases in point, and she puts forward a series of options for extending health cover. She also looks at the role that unions can play in this. The study is based on a broad review of the literature.

Fight poverty - organize!

Workers' international symposium draws up anti-poverty demands
For workers, trade unions have always been a means of lifting themselves out of poverty. Unions are still working people's main channel for representation, escaping poverty and achieving social justice for themselves and their communities. That was the big message from the International Symposium on the Role of Trade Unions in the Global Economy and the Fight against Poverty, which was held in Geneva from 17 to 21 October 2005 under the slogan Fight Poverty - Organize!

Representatives of 45 national trade union centres, nominated by the workers' group, took part , as well as 40 union representatives from 15 countries attending as observers. They called on governments, the international financial institutions and the ILO to take concerted steps, within their respective spheres, to eradicate poverty. According to Jerry Zellhoefer, who presented the symposium report to the Governing Body, poverty is on the increase, with nearly 60 per cent of workers and their families in developing countries living beneath the poverty line. This, he said, demonstrated that the global economy was working only for a few and needed a social pillar, coherence and better governance.

Specific requests to governments from the symposium participants include considering ways of mobilizing additional resources for development aid, including through international taxation. The symposium also called upon the financial institutions to guarantee the implementation of the pledges made by the G8 concerning debt cancellation and increased Official Development Assistance, and to eliminate conditionality associated with loans. They should also expand the criteria for the IFI Country Performance Indices to include trade union rights. Finally, the ILO was asked to reinforce its work on poverty and prioritize capacity building of the social partners in PRSPs.

The symposium conclusions generated considerable interest in the Governing Body's Committee on Sectoral and Technical Meetings and Related Issues. An employer representative from India stated that the role of unions in developing countries should not be underestimated, as they could make real contributions to development. And the Nigerian government representative called on the international financial institutions to put more emphasis on employment rather than on purely economic issues. She urged employers and governments to engage in social dialogue.

The conclusions of this international workers' symposium deserve wide distribution.

Speaking at the symposium were trade union leaders from around sixty countries and leading ILO officers, including Director-General Juan Somavia, as well as senior officials of the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP), the International Organization of Employers (IOE), international institutions (notably the IMF, the UN, the World Bank, UNCTAD and the Commonwealth Foundation) and the Ambassadors of Sweden and the Netherlands.

Globalization failing to create new, quality jobs or reduce poverty

ILO report sees wide gaps in wages, productivity gains
Global economic growth is increasingly failing to translate into new and better jobs that lead to a reduction in poverty, according to a new report issued by the International Labour Office (ILO) on December 9, 2005. In the report, the ILO points out that within this global trend, different regions show mixed results in terms of job creation, productivity results, wage improvements and poverty reduction.

Taking a global view, the 4th Edition of Key Indicators of the Labour Market (KILM) says that currently, half the world's workers still do not earn enough to lift themselves and their families above the US $2 a day poverty line.

"The key message is that up to now better jobs and income for the world's workers has not been a priority in policy-making", said ILO Director-General Juan Somavia. "Globalization has so far not led to the creation of sufficient and sustainable decent work opportunities around the world. That has to change, and as many leaders have already said we must make decent work a central objective of all economic and social policies. This report can be a useful tool for promoting that objective."

The study finds that while in some areas of Asia economic expansion is fostering solid growth in jobs and improvements in living conditions, other areas such as Africa and parts of Latin America are seeing increasing numbers of people working in less favorable conditions, especially in the agricultural sector. The KILM also says that for millions of workers, new jobs often provide barely enough income to lift them above the poverty line, or are far below any adequate measure of satisfying and productive work. The total number of working women and men living on less than $2 a day has not fallen over the past decade although at 1.38 billion it is a smaller share of global employment at just below 50 per cent, a decline from 57 per cent in 1994.

The new KILM paints an in-depth picture of both the quantity and quality of jobs around the world by examining 20 key indicators of the labour market. The KILM covers quantitative topics such as labour force participation, employment, inactivity, employment elasticities, sectoral employment, labour productivity and unemployment, and qualitative issues such as hours worked, wages, employment status, unemployment duration and others.

The social dimension of sustainable development

A first-ever UN-sponsored Trade Union Assembly on Labour and the Environment
UNEP in co-operation with the International Labour Organization (ILO), Sustainlabour and Global Compact is organizing the first ever Trade Union Assembly on Labour and the Environment at the UNEP Headquarters in Nairobi from 15-17 January 2006.

The main aim of the Assembly is to reinforce the social and labour dimension of environmental conservation and sustainable development as well as to strengthen the relationship between UNEP, and the world of labour.

According to Agenda 21, "Trade Unions should play an active role in the sustainable development activities of international and labour organizations, particularly within the United Nations System."

At the World Summit and Sustainable Development (WSSD), UNEP co-hosted a high level meeting with the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC) to the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) entitled 'Fashioning a New Deal'. The key objective of this conference was to identify linkages between sustainable employment practices and environmental management. It resulted in a commitment by UNEP, ILO and ICFTU/TUAC to start a joint programme of work on labour and sustainable development issues.

The Assembly marks a step towards a wider and more profound partnership in this direction.

The Assembly will also be known as WILL 2006 because, at the event, Trade Unions will be launching their Workers' Initiatives for a Lasting Legacy.

WCL Congress: on course for a new international

WCL and ICFTU plan new trade union international for November 2006
The World Confederation of Labour, which held its 26th Congress in Houffalize, Belgium, on 21-23 November, opted for full commitment to the creation of a new international trade union organization that will bring together the WCL and ICFTU confederations as well as other democratic, independent organizations that are not yet affiliated internationally. The new international trade union organization is likely to be launched in November 2006, at a founding Congress in Vienna. The ICFTU had already taken the same decision at its 18th World Congress in Miyazaki, Japan.

The WCL Congress re-elected Willy Thys (Belgium) as its General Secretary. Adrien Akouete of Togo was elected President. The Congress also adopted resolutions on peace, information, gender equality, the International Labour Organization and trade union movement's relations with other civil society organizations. In its Resolution on the ILO the WCL decided:

• to firmly support tripartism, which must remain the centre of all the activities of ILO in order to enable it to attain the strategic goals it has set itself;
• to demand the strengthening, with material and human resources, of the present standard-setting system and the various sectors of ILO;
• to urge ILO to endeavour to adopt the conclusions and recommendations of the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalisation by means of an instrument accompanied with a follow-up mechanism;
• to demand that ILO, within the framework of its relations with the other institutions of the United Nations system, be recognised as an institution that cannot be ignored in the matter of social and economic development, and that ILO can have the means to influence the decisions of the financial institutions with regard to the lives of the companies and of the workers.

WFTU Congress in Havana

The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) held its 15th Congress in Havana (Cuba) on December 1-4 2005. Some 27 resolutions were adopted by the 556 delegates and observers. In his report on activities, WFTU General Secretary Alexander Zharikov, said that the decision of the ICFTU Congress in Miyazaki, Japan, to form a new international organisation with the WCL, "continued the trade union split imposed by the architects of the Cold War". The final declaration adopted by the Congress says "Combating the consequences (of globalization) is one matter, combating their causes is another! We must confront the predatory logic of the capitalist and imperialist system, as it is an illusion to confine oneself to addressing only excesses". Documents tabled at the congress also criticized the position of the ICFTU and WCL and their affiliates concerning social clauses and their use of the ILO complaint mechanisms to denounce violations of trade union rights in China, Cuba, Belarus, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. Mohammad Assouz (Syria) was elected President, replacing K.L. Mahendra (India) and George Mavrikos (Greece) was elected General Secretary replacing Alexander Zharikov (Russia).

Textiles: ILO-WTO dialogue in the offing?

Employers voice reservations over ILO proposals
Since 1 January 2005, the end of the quotas that used to limit some countries' worldwide textile and garment exports has revolutionized this sector. As expected, Chinese exports to the two main markets, the European Union and the United States, have skyrocketed. In the EU of the 25, employment in the sector dropped by 5 per cent between February 2004 and February 2005, and job losses are expected to rise further. Working conditions have also been hit by the current fierce competition between producers for market share, according to worker delegates taking part in a tripartite meeting on the globalization of the textile industry, held by the ILO in Geneva on 24-26 October.

The tripartite participants set four priorities for the ILO:

• supporting a major drive to improve skills development for both workers and managers in the sector
• providing a new global information and analysis service, including better and more up-to-date employment information and details of compliance with core international labour standards
• providing assistance in compliance and remediation to requesting exporting countries ready to ratify and implement core labour standards
• establishing a global social responsibility forum for dialogue between governments and employers' and workers' organizations in the producing and buying links in the TC chain, relevant international agencies and other relevant bodies.

Although varying views were expressed, the chair of the tripartite meeting noted in his summary, presented to the Governing Body's Committee on sectoral meetings, that the ILO should cooperate more actively with the World Bank, the WTO and the various actors, such as the Global Compact, the OECD guidelines on multinational companies and the Multifibre Arrangement Forum. During the discussion on the meeting report, Jerry Zellhoefer recalled that it had been the workers' group that had long pressed for the holding of this tripartite meeting. He emphasized that the workers' group supported "the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers' Federation's call for the WTO to provide for a specific discussion on trade liberalization in the TC sector during its forthcoming Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong, China, in December." The employers' representatives, for their part, expressed reservations about the promotion of policy coherence between the ILO, the WTO, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international institutions.

Privatization in Latin America

Public services miss out on democratization, nine-country study finds
After the lost decade of the 1980s, the fall of the military dictatorships in most Latin American countries raised hopes of economic recovery, social development and freedom. The economic policies that were brought in did rein back the region's galloping inflation, but the desire of successive governments to reduce the role of the State through privatizations, outsourcing and subcontracting not only reduced job security in the public services, but also led to real staff cuts and the deregulation of working conditions. The weakening of the public services coincided with a breakdown in the fair redistribution of national income, leading to social exclusion. The state of social dialogue, basic labour rights and collective bargaining in nine countries is analyzed in Comparison of the present state of industrial relations in the public sector of nine Latin American countries (available in Spanish only: Situación actual comparada de la relaciones laborales en el sector público de nueve paises de América latina). The authors highlight the role of the public services and the need to make them more effective through dialogue and respect for public workers' trade union rights. Prepared by Amalaia Villaroel, the study was the fruit of technical cooperation with the Bureau for Workers' Activities as part of its project on trade unions and decent work in Latin America in the globalization era. Coordinated by Blanca Gomez, this project was financed by the Spanish government in cooperation with the ILO Regional Office for the Americas and with the support of the Public Services International (PSI).

Young workers and unions. Produced under the same project, a guide for trade union youth officers and youth movements provides a whole series of training modules. The aim is to promote active participation by young people in analyzing and identifying solutions to one of their main concerns - work. This is not about the individual search for jobs. Necessary though that may be, it is not enough in itself. Rather, the youth guide's approach to the job issue is one of promoting collective action. The two publications are available on request, please contact ACTRAV.

Pointers

Helping reconstruction in Pakistan. The ILO has approved the allocation of three million US dollars for reconstruction work in the areas devastated by the earthquake in Pakistan. Geir Myrstad, of the ILO's IPEC programme, reports that the organization has launched a special scheme to help child victims of the earthquake, which killed more than 85,000 people. The ILO estimates that more than a million jobs may have been lost.

International decent work for youth campaign. The Governing Body held a long debate on the follow-up to the general discussion on decent work for young people (International Labour Conference, June 2005). In the planned international campaign on decent work, efforts will be strengthened to ensure that relevant international labour standards are used as key references in all promotional and advocacy activities on youth employment. According to the document submitted to the Governing Body, the ILO instruments provide a firm basis for the promotional campaign and references to them will enhance their visibility and promote understanding of them. They will also be promoted in the process of formulating, implementing and reviewing national action plans on youth employment. During the Conference, the Workers' Group strongly insisted on this aspect of the campaign, and a close eye should be kept on developments.

The power of the minimum wage. The minimum wage is "a powerful, flexible instrument of economic and social policy". So say ILO specialists Catherine Saget and François Eyraud in their study The Fundamentals of Minimum Wage Fixing, which lists the more than one hundred countries that have adopted mechanisms of this type. The relationship between the minimum wage and employment is generally the main economic policy concern. The authors also discuss the social policy role of the minimum wage and the outcomes for the least well-off. This new ILO study is a vital resource for any debate on the introduction of a minimum wage and the means of fixing it. It looks at the impact of the minimum wage on other economic variables such as jobs, wage inequality and poverty. And it analyzes the various ways of fixing and implementing a minimum wage, drawing in particular on the ILO's database on the minimum wage in around 100 countries (the database is available for consultation).

Asian regional meeting. Postponed due to a dispute between the South Korean government and the unions, the ILO Asian regional meeting originally scheduled for October 2005 in Pusan will now be held there in September 2006. This will be the first time that an ILO Asian regional meeting has been held outside Bangkok, where the Organization's regional office is based. The Korean unions have withdrawn their objections to the holding of the meeting, even though the dispute over the government's industrial relations "road map" has not yet been resolved. Recently, an ICFTU delegation once again told the Korean government that the international movement supports the Korean unions' demand for proper respect of trade union rights in their country.

Call centres. The ILO will soon be publishing a collection of directives on the construction and adaptation of call centres, so as to ensure a better working environment. Noise and air pollution are among the most important shortcomings in call centre infrastructure, notes an ILO specialist in India. And trade unions are highly critical of working conditions in the centres.